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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






A DISCOURSE "^ • 



/ ' 



ON THE 



OF 



SAMUEL BARD, M.D. & LL.D. 

LATE PRESIDENT OF THE NEW-YORK COLLEGE OF 
PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS ; 

PRONOUNCED IN THE PUBLIC HALL, 

AT THE 

REQUEST OF THE TRUSTEES, 

ON 

The 5th day of Nov. 1821. 



BY SAMUEL L. MITCHILL, M.D. & LL.D. 

Professor of Botany and Materia Medica ; Surgeon- General of the Militia ; 

President of the Lyceum for Natural History ; President of the 

Society for instructing the Deaf and Dumb ; President of 

the Medical Society of the State, and of the 

County of New- York, fyc. fyc. fyc. 



NEW-YORK: 

PRINTED BY DANIEL FANSHAW, 

No. 20 Slote-Lane. 

1821. 






/ 



At an adjourned Quarterly Meeting of the Trustees of 
the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Uni- 
versity of the State of New-York, held at the College, 
on Tuesday, November 15, 1821, 

On motion, Resolved, unanimously, that the thanks 
of this College be presented to Dr. Mitchill, for his 
Discourse delivered on the 5th inst. commemorative 
of the life and character i of Dr. Samuel Bard, late 
President of this College. 

Resolved, That a copy of the said Discourse be re- 
quested of Dr. Mitchill for publication, and that the 
Chairman of this meeting wait on Dr. Mitchill for 
said purpose. 

A true copy from the minutes. 

JOHN W. FRANCIS, MD. 

Registrar. 



A ®!@©®lTOa 



% 



"" Qt^tl*^ ' 



Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees — Fellow Citizens, 

It is both entertaining and instructive to consider the 
lives and characters of distinguished persons. The 
department of composition, to which this subject be- 
longs, is, in its general denomination, termed history ; 
but the description of the events and occurrences that 
relate to an individual person, is called biography. 
And it is considered, by good judges, as one of the most 
interesting species of writing. 

The ancients began this sort of composition, as we 
learn from the book in which Xenophon recorded the 
more memorable words and deeds of Socrates; from 
the volumes compiled by Plutarch on the lives of emi- 
nent men ; from the compendious account of great 
commanders by Cornelius Nepos ; from the lives of the 
twelve Caesars, written by Suetonius ; and from that 
elegant essay of Tacitus upon his father-in-law, Agri- 
cola. 

The moderns have continued the practice to such 
number and extent, that a mere catalogue of the tracts 
would occupy the pages of a great tome. Among the 
more conspicuous of this class may be mentioned, the 
Biographical Dictionary of Bayle, Johnson's Lives of 
the Poets, Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, Bowyer's 
History of the Popes, Fox's History of the Martyrs, 
and Roscoe's admirable age of the Medici family. To 
which may be added, the biographical articles in the 
Encyclopaedia and other Dictionaries, and a long list 
of particular works. 



6 

There are several methods of executing such tasks. 
When the excellences of great personages are dis- 
played, with full blazonry, the performance is called 
panegyric. When the conduct and qualities of a less 
elevated person are made the theme of commendation, 
it is termed eulogy. When the whole origin, pro- 
gress, education, opinions, writings, and deportment of 
an individual are detailed minutely, with the errors and 
foibles incidental to human nature, as well as the vir- 
tues, talents, and high attainments for which he was 
distinguished, it is biography in the strict and proper 
sense of the word. 

The service assigned to me, on this occasion, by the 
Trustees of the College, can scarcely be said to belong 
to either of these heads. I understand that it is ex- 
pected I should exhibit, or attempt, such a delineation 
of the conduct and writings of our late president, as 
shall be respectful and just to his memory, and instruc- 
tive to his survivors. Therefore, in the selection of the 
topics, and in the manner of treating them, I must 
necessarily be limited by the terms of my commission, 
as well as by the measure of the academic hour. 

And here I must observe, that he was my instructor 
in medicine almost three years. From him I received 
many useful lessons on the employment of time, on the 
government of the mind, and the various learning and 
acquirement necessary for a physician. I heard his 
precepts. I knew his opinions. His example was be- 
fore me. I witnessed the sentiments and demeanor that 
befitted a gentleman. He w r as in the thirty-ninth year 
of his age when I became his pupil, and I left him in 
his forty -second. He was then in the vigour of life, 
and in the possession of respectable and profitable prac- 
tice. He received me as one of the eight students that 
frequented his office, under the following circumstances. 

I had acquired some knowledge of pharmacy, and 
had read parts of Quincy's Lexicon, of James's Dispen- 
satory, and Van Swieton's Commentaries on the Apho- 
risms of Boerhaave, as a tyro in the profession, with 



my maternal uncle Samuel Latham, an able and popu- 
lar physician at Hempstead, whose name I never pro- 
nounce without a mixture of veneration and love. He 
had studied in this city with the accomplished Dupuy, 
of whose erudition, attainments, and early death, the 
inscription on his tombstone, in a neighbouring ceme- 
tery, bears witness. 

My uncle had become acquainted with Peter Mid- 
dleton, M. D., then one of the lights and leaders of the 
profession, and entertained of him so exalted an opi- 
nion, that he had determined to place me under Mid- 
dleton's tuition. But in 1781 that physician terminat- 
ed his earthly career, and it was immediately thereon 
resolved that a situation should be provided for me 
with Bard. I continued with him until August, 1 784, 
when I went to France. But as my ultimate destina- 
tion was Edinburgh, he wrote several introductory let- 
ters in my behalf to the professors of that celebrated 
university. 

During that time I served him faithfully. He taught 
me the art of putting up prescriptions in a neat and 
exact manner. He initiated me into the mysteries of 
chemistry, and made me intimately acquainted with the 
articles of the materia medica that entered into his pre- 
scriptions. By degrees the symptoms of diseases, and 
the indications of cure, grew familiar by visiting his pa- 
tients. I beheld the operation of remedies, and in due 
time I knew how to direct as well as to prepare them. 

A full proportion of the great and fashionable men of 
the day frequented the house of my preceptor. There 
I used to see the worthy and highly respectable John 
Taber Kempe, the King's Attorney General for the 
province, who was afterwards polite and friendly in 
London ; the distinguished John Mervin Nooth, the 
superintendent of the British hospitals ; the gay and 
learned Michaelis, physician general to the Hessian 
troops, who wrote a book on the Angina polyposa ; 
Liridley Murray, our sensible and amiable countryman,, 
author of some of the best elementary books extant on 



8 

the English language, whose friendship endures to the 
present moment ; and a great number more of the wor- 
thies and notables of the time. 

By posting his books, and collecting a part of the 
money earned by his business, 1 gained a tolerable 
knowledge of entries and accounts. 

He confirmed me in the habit of early rising ; he 
encouraged me to persevere in classical studies, and in 
the acquirement of belles lettres ; he gave me the first 
lesson of systematic botany ; and I remember that he 
even directed me how to write, fold, and address a let- 
ter in a genteel style and becoming manner. 

I mention these occurrences for two reasons: the 
first, that my hearers may be satisfied I enjoyed abun- 
dant opportunities to become acquainted with the sub- 
ject of my present discourse ; and the second, that my 
audience, especially the younger class, may understand 
the mode in w r hich the relations of teacher and pupil 
were sustained between us. 

Samuel Bard, son of John Bard, was born at Phila- 
delphia, on the first day of April, in the year of our 
Lord 1 742. He was of French descent, both on the 
father's and mother's side; his ancestors having fled 
from France on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. 
As that event brought many other worthy and respec- 
table families from the same kingdom into our coun- 
try, I explain summarily what it was. In 1483, the 
famous reformer, Martin Luther, was born. His attack 
upon the Church of Rome was made during the pon- 
tificate of Leo X. To the diet of Spires, in 1526, 
Charles V., then King of the Spains and the Indias, 
and Emperor of Germany, proposed that the Romish 
religion should be supported, and heretics punished. 
Several temporal princes, in a subsequent diet, pro- 
tested against the measures of the empire ; whence 
they and their followers were called Protestants. 
Twenty-six years after the birth of Luther, John Cal- 
vin became an inhabitant of this world, to wit, in 1509, 
and laboured with extraordinary success to separate 



the Protestants wider from the mother Church, to 
propagate the new doctrines more extensively among 
the people, and to gain proselytes to the cause of the 
reformation. Henry IV. King of Navarre and France, 
who was born in 1553, promulgated an act of toleration 
in favour of the Protestants, at the city of Nantes, on 
the bank of the Loire, in Lower Brittany, during 1594. 
This regulation remained in force until 1680, when the 
pride, the weakness, and folly of Louis XIV. induced 
him, in an evil hour, to revoke or repeal it. By this 
act of cruelty, it was estimated that fifty thousand fami- 
lies precipitately left his bigotted dominions, and brought 
the arts, manufactures, literature, skill, culture, and 
wealth of their native country into the foreign realms 
that afforded them a friendly and welcome reception. 

During 1746, when young Bard was only four years 
old, his father executed a plan he had for some time 
meditated, of removing his family to New-York, for the 
purpose of making a permanent settlement as a medical 
man. The son was brought along, and destined to 
follow the profession of his father. 

Being a youth of good constitution, and promising 
capacity, it was determined to bestow upon him an 
education befitting a scholar, and a physician. He was 
accordingly put to school, under an instructor of whom 
he used to speak with respect; though his name has 
been pronounced in my hearing, feebly by that of Smith. 
Having made progress enough for advancement, he was 
received as a student at King's (now Columbia) College, 
in his fourteenth year, that is, in 1756. Leonard Cut- 
ting was professor of classical literature there at that 
time, and Bard received the benefit of his public lec- 
tures, and of his private tuition. It was the boy's own 
fault if he did not become a good scholar under Cut- 
ting. I knew this reverend gentleman very well after 
his induction as Rector to St. George's Chapel, at 
Hempstead, in Queen's County, where it was my lot 
to receive instruction from his lessons. 

2 



10' 

I consider him as one of the best teachers of the old 
Greek and Latin languages I ever knew for preparing 
youths to enter College. He was able and assiduous; 
very proud of good and industrious lads ; but impatient 
of perverse and idle ones. He raised the fame of the 
village where he taught, higher than it had ever been 
since it was the seat of government, instituted by the 
Duke of York, (afterwards King James II.) then the pro- 
prietor ; and the place whence his code of laws was 
promulgated by Governor Nichols. It is easy to con- 
ceive that Bard must have received very important in- 
struction from a man who was thoroughly versed in the 
Hellenistic dialects contained in the verses of Homer ; 
who, like a true gymnastic, caused the stream that wa- 
tered the parsonage where he dwelt, to bear the bodies 
of the juvenile swimmers ;. who was delighted when I 
quoted to him the neat verses, 

Nudus mergor aquis, quas dumferioque trahoque 
Mille modis labens excussaque brachia jacto. 

A thousand ways I throw my sportive limbs, 
As through the flood my uncloth'd body swims. 

and who assisted the capable students to read the trea- 
tise of Cicero, de officiis, and the essay of Puffendorff 
de officio hominis et civis. 

It appears that during five years or upwards, Bard 
was the disciple of Cutting. This, however, was not ex- 
clusively the case. For, during the time he was occa- 
sionally occupied in mixing and moulding his father's 
prescriptions, and in carrying them forth to the patients. 
Pharmacy, so acquired, could not be readily lost ; and a 
knowledge of diseases obtained by visiting the sick, and 
watching the operation of medicines, must necessarily 
be durable. Let no one of those who now hear me look 
with disdain upon the mortar and pestle ; nor smile with 
contempt upon the dexterity of the apprentice who can 
duly apply to the disordered part of a patient's bQdy a 
blistering plaster, prepared from the gallipot and with 
the spatula, by his own hands. 



11 

In the year 1761, when he was about nineteen years 
old, it was decided that he should visit Europe, for the 
purpose of completing an education so well begun. 
War then existed between Great Britain and France. 
New-York and the other colonies had been relieved 
from vexation and bloodshed by the glorious conquest of 
Canada ; but the armed vessels of the enemy were yet 
active on the ocean. The ship in which Bard was a 
passenger, being ^British bottom, was a fair subject of 
capture. She was taken by a hostile privateer, and 
carried into Bayonne, a port of France. He was de- 
tained a prisoner for several months. And it is stated 
that the intercession of Benjamin Franklin, an old ac- 
quaintance of his father, and then a provincial Agent 
in England, was exerted in procuring his release. 

He repaired to Edinburgh, the place for which he 
had started ; a school of medicine which had then ac- 
quired a high degree of celebrity. Here he went 
through a regular course of study, under the elder 
Monro, and Gregory, Cullen, Hope, and the other 
professors of that time. 

It appears that he cultivated, with diligence, a further 
acquaintance with the Latin language. John Brown, 
who afterwards rose to great renown, under the name 
of Joannes Bruno, was then a teacher of young men at 
the university. Bard availed himself of Brown's learn- 
ing, and took lessons, which Brown was very well 
qualified to give, on latinity and medicine. For Brown 
had added to classical scholarship, an intimate acquaint- 
ance with all the opinions, doctrines, and anecdotes of 
the place. He knew the whole routine of academic 
business, and could prepare the students for their ex- 
aminations before the faculty. He could translate in- 
augural dissertations from English into Latin for the 
unlearned, or furnish them out of whole stuff, for the 
dull and the idle. He rendered himself so important a 
man among the students, that they supported him as a 
private teacher, and elected him a President of their Roy- 
al Medical Society. When, more than twenty years af- 



12 

terwards, I became a disciple of Brown, I found him 
eminently intelligent, and communicative on classical 
and professional subjects. The intemperance, vulgari- 
ty, and abuse in which he too frequently indulged, im- 
paired, but did not destroy the value of his communi- 
cations. I have listened to him while speaking at my 
own table, in his lecture-room, and from the chair of 
the Aquila Romana, or Roman Eagle Lodge, of which 
he was master ; and I every where heard something 
worthy of being remembered. 

In 1764, when Bard was twenty-two years old, he 
acquired distinction by a botanical performance. At 
that time John Hope was the King's Botanist for Scot- 
land. It usually happens that the Town -Council, who 
are the patrons of the university, elect as their pro- 
fessor of Botany the man whom his Majesty has ho- 
noured with this appointment. With the intention of 
encouraging the study of Scottish plants, and particu- 
larly of stimulating young gentlemen at the university 
to search for them and to know them, Dr. Hope of- 
fered a gold medal as a premium for the best herba- 
rium or collection of dried plants, growing spontaneous- 
ly within ten miles of Edinburgh. Bard obtained this 
testimonial of superior skill, in collecting, arranging, and 
preserving the vegetable species of that vicinity. It is 
reported that he had received the rudiments of the 
science from Miss Colden, daughter of Dr. Colden, 
President of the Council, and acting Lieutenant Go- 
vernor of New-York ; and that he had repaid the young 
lady for her instruction, by making figures and draw- 
ings of plants for her. It hence appears, that before 
he left home, he was a tolerable proficient in that use- 
ful and charming art. He always retained a strong 
taste for delineation and perspective, and practised them 
as far as he found it needful. From the ease and ex- 
actness of his sketches there can be little doubt, had 
he pursued the occupation, he would have become 
an adept. 

A book of the plants then exhibited, is yet extant. 



13 

It was presented to me some years ago, by Charles Bux- 
ton, M. D. It is a large folio, in strong binding, and 
lettered E plantis circa Edinam nalis. C. By the let- 
ter C, it would seem that it was only one of several ; 
or, that at least there were two more ; of this, how- 
ever, I am uninformed. The present volume contains 
about one hundred plants, glued to sheets of white pa- 
per, and these laid between larger sheets of purple pa- 
per. Their scientific names, their places of growth, 
and the season of gathering, are distinctly written on the 
opposite page. They are mostly in good preservation, 
after a lapse of fifty-seven years. In particular, the 
Conium maculatum, Parnassia palustris, Alisma planta- 
go, iEsculus hippocastanum, Fragaria vesca, Geum 
rivale, Agrimonia eupatoria, Spiraea filipendula, Rubus 
idseus, Papaver rhseas, Stachys sylvatica, and Urtica 
diocia, look exceedingly natural. With such an exam- 
ple of early industry, and of its lasting and reputable 
character before them, I trust my hearers will be induced 
to make similar exertions, and to tread in the footsteps 
of our departed friend. The next year he attained the 
doctorate in the University ; on which occasion he pub- 
lished a Dissertation on Opium. (Tentamen de viribus 
opii. Edin. 1 765 :) It was written as then was, and now 
is, the custom there, in Latin. Such was the proficien- 
cy he had made in Roman literature, that the whole 
performance, the matter, and the diction, were fairly his 
own. In the controversy concerning this inspissated 
juice of the poppy, and more especially its power, whe- 
ther stimulant or sedative, Bard espoused the latter 
opinion. He instituted experiments to prove that this 
precious article was in the main a sedative ; that is to 
say, its torpifying power was not the consequence of 
the indirect debility produced by its high previous sti- 
mulation ; and therein, I presume he was right. 

The old name under which sedative is comprehended, 
is that of narcotic. As this word is very much in use, 
and its etymology not very commonly explained, I shall 
give its primitive meaning, and therein show how 



14 

ichthyology and the Greek language elucidate medicine. 
N*/>*» is the name of an animal called torpedo by the La- 
tins, and numb-fish by the English. It was so called 
because it had the power to affect the nerves and mus- 
cles of a man with torpor or numbness. From this 
root come the two verbs, v«/>x<« which signifies, in a 
neuter sense, to be or become torpid ; and v«f*oa, in an 
active sense, to render or make torpid. From the same 
radical are also derived **/>*»*•«, torpefaction, and va^^o?, 
having the power to torpefy. 

In modern phraseology the words are not confined 
to the benumbing effect of the fish, but extended to all 
agents which produce torpor in the sensibility of the 
nerves, or the mobility or vis insita of the muscles. 

There are three ways of producing torpor : 

1. By withdrawing the stimuli necessary to sustain 
life. 

The diminution of caloric, or the production of the 
state we call cold, if carried far enough, causes univer- 
sal numbness, which is followed by morbid sleep, and 
finally by death. 

The denial of food, or the production of the state 
called hunger, if carried far enough, induces a general 
torpor, which also ends in death. 

The removal of oxygenous or vital respirable air, if 
carried far enough and continued long enough, will pro- 
duce the torpor of suffocation or drowning, ending in 
death. 

Hence some physiologists apply the term Torpentia 
to all remedies and applications that stimulate less than 
the natural or ordinary excitants, and which thereby 
enervate and debilitate the body. 

2. By the undue or excessive application of stimuli. 
Thus too much caloric, too much food, or too much 

oxygen, by overaction produce torpor. 

A violent fit of anger, one of the most unruly of the 
passions, has sometimes induced the torpor of apoplexy. 

Too much bodily exercise produces the torpor of 
fatigue. 



15 

Too much mental exertion brings on the torpor of 
listlessness or inattention. 

3. By the operation of certain agents which possess 
a directly torpefying power. 

These are the substances that, in a strict sense, are 
the sedatives of the materia medica. 

Lead and its preparations belong to this class. The 
form of the acetate of this metal, which is called the 
saccharum saturni, restrains haemoptysis and diarrhoea, 
and allays cuticular inflammation by a positively tor- 
pefying power. For there is no subduction of stimulus 
on the one part, nor any high excitement on the other, 
to explain its effects. 

The leaves of the purple fox-glove, or digitalis pur- 
purea, act directly and from the beginning by torpefying 
the heart, and rendering its action weaker and slower. 
Hence its power over the arterial system of vessels, as 
evinced by the feeble beat of the pulse, even in the 
diseases of phlogistic diathesis. 

The bugle-weed, water-horehound, or lycopus vir- 
ginicus, has become celebrated by its power to restrain 
hsemorrhagy. It lessens excessive action, calms ir- 
regular action, and composes inordinate action, espe- 
cially that of the blood-vessels in haemoptysis. It can 
produce the effects ascribed to it only by a direct torpe- 
fying, or narcotic virtue. 

Carbonic acid gas, or vapour of burning charcoal, 
as breathed by persons slumbering in a close bed-room 
or sloop's cabin, seems to act as a direct sedative, les- 
sening vital energy, and if continued, inducing the tor- 
por of death. 

The leaves and extract of belladona and stramonium, 
when, by application to the skin around the eye, they 
enlarge the pupil, do it by inducing a torpor of the iris 
by their directly sedative action. 

So several poisonous plants, such as conium and 
cicuta, produce their deleterious effects, by prostrating 
the powers of life without an intervening and propor- 
tionate degree of excitement. 



16 

Opium, or the inspissated juice of the poppy, has 
been considered, by certain physicians, as acting in a 
manner somewhat analagous, that is, of producing tor- 
por by an operation directly, positively, and unequivo- 
cally sedative. 

On this it may be remarked, that its effects are pecu- 
liar, and different from those of every other known 
production. 

It seems, when received into the healthy stomach in 
moderate quantity, to excite the nervous system, while 
it retards the motion of the heart. Its cordial exhila- 
rating, and sometimes maddening effects, have ranked 
it with the most diffusible and general stimulants ; and 
its capacity to relieve pain, to remove spasm, and pro- 
cure sleep, have placed it among the most powerful 
sedatives. 

1 feel as if I ought to be classical while I discourse to 
the members of the most learned of the professions. 

A physician, armed with opium, may be compared 
to Hermes, the messenger of the heathen gods, equipped 
with his virga, or wand. The virtue ascribed to the 
caduceus was wonderful, for the powers the possessor 
derived from it are thus described by Virgil, iEneid IV. 
v. 240. 

Turn virgam capit : h&c animas Me evocat Oreo 
Pallentes ; alias sub tristia Tartara mittit ; 
Dat somnos adimitque ; et lumina morte resignat. 

Pale ghosts from Orcus come ; he bids some stay — 

And others sends to Tartarus away ! 

These he commands unceasing watch to keep, 

And those he buries in profoundest sleep ; 

He even seals the sightless eyes in death. 

And so it is with opium, which, according to the 
constitution and dose, produces the apparently opposite 
and contradictory effects which have given rise to so 
much debate. 

Having thus completed the course of instruction pre- 
scribed by the statutes of the university at Edinburgh, 
Bard went to London, and passed the winter and spring 



17 

in attending the hospitals and lectures. He frequented 
more especially those of Guy and Saint Thomas. I have 
heard him speak of Dr. Akenside, the famous poet, 
then one of the physicians, and author of a medical 
work entitled Commentarius de Dysenterid, a specimen 
of fine latinity, in which he maintained a doctrine 
which has not gained many proselytes, that dysentery 
was a rheumatism of the intestines. 

Some time during that year he returned home. He 
had then entered his twenty-fourth year ; and may be 
considered as the most accomplished young physician 
that New- York could then boast. This was the con- 
sequence of the diligence w r ith which he had improved 
the excellent opportunities afforded him. 
• The peace of 1763 had tranquillized the warring 
nations. But the colonies were agitated with discon- 
tent and anger against the stamp-act, and other op- 
pressive proceedings of the parliament. These occur- 
rences nevertheless did not oppose a serious obstacle 
to the formation of a medical school. 

Among the professional men of that day, (about 
1767,) distinguished for their learning, talents, and 
public spirit, were John Jones, James Smith, John 
Tennent, Peter Middleton, and Samuel Clossey. As 
might have been expected, young Bard took high rank, 
and was associated with the foremost. The governors 
of King's College entered zealously into the project, 
appointed a board of professors, and organized them 
into a faculty. To Jones was assigned surgery, to 
Smith chemistry, to Tennent obstetrics, to Middleton 
the theory of physic, to Clossey anatomy, and to Bard 
the practice. And here we see the first successful at- 
tempt to establish a regular plan of medical education. 
It is in reality the germ, whose vitality, suspended 
during the revolution, and impaired by various checks 
and impediments since, has at length been restored, 
and now flourishes with full vigour in this institution. 
Clossey and Smith appear to have lectured in 1766. 

The professors performed their several functions with 

3 



18 

so much fidelity, that a class of students received their 
degrees, at the public commencement, on the 16th day 
of May, 1769. 

But, though the professorships and lectures were 
thus arranged, there was no public receptacle for the 
sick and disabled. This was a capital defect; and 
means were promptly taken to supply it. The pro- 
fessor of the practice delivered a charge to the gradu- 
ates on the duties of a physician. And he, with be- 
coming sagacity, coupled with his advice to the can- 
didates, some sentiments on the usefulness and necessity 
of a public hospital. From an examination of the dis- 
course, as it was printed, it appears that the governor, 
Sir Henry Moore, was present when it was pronounced, 
and was pleased to express a very favourable opinion 
of it. His excellency, and the principal members of 
the council, promoted the design by liberal donations. 

There had been, prior to that event, a society of gen- 
tlemen, who held meetings for promoting the improve- 
ment, and increasing the usefulness, of their profession. 
They had passed a resolve, immediately after its for- 
mation, that they would address the Legislature on the 
subject the first favourable opportunity. The ministers 
of religion had become sensible of the relief that would 
be thereby extended to the suffering poor. The long 
expected season had now arrived. Bard undertook the 
work with that ardour and industry which characte- 
rized him when he was engaged in promoting any ob- 
ject which he believed to be right. After urging the 
reasons in its favour, from considerations of charity, he 
thus proceeds, (p. 17.) u another argument, and that by 
no means the least, for an institution of this nature, is, 
that it affords the best and only means of properly in- 
structing pupils in the practice of medicine ; as far, 
therefore, as the breeding good and able physicians, 
which in all countries, and all times, has been thought 
an object of the highest importance, deserves the con- 
sideration of the public, this institution must, likewise, 
claim its protection and encouragement." 



19 

Public opinion corresponded with his exertions ; 
funds were obtained ; a charter was granted on the thir- 
teenth day of June, 1771, by Governor Dunmore ; and 
an edifice constructed on the land where it now stands, 
with a rapidity which proves the favourable excite- 
ment that prevailed. Its foundation was laid on the 
27th of July that year. Unfortunately, however, it 
was nearly consumed by an accidental fire, on the 28th 
of February, 1775, when it was almost finished. Mea- 
sures were immediately adopted for rebuilding it. But 
before its completion, the enemy, in August, 1776, 
took possession of the city, and held that possession 
until the 25th November, 1 783. In the mean w r hile, 
a term of more than seven years, the building, un- 
finished, though habitable, was converted into barracks 
and infirmaries for the hostile soldiery. 

Immediately after the sovereignty of the state was 
restored, on the evacuation, steps were taken to repair 
once more, and finish the hospital, and to provide funds 
for its support afterwards. In the course of seven 
years this was accomplished ; and on opening the 
wards for the reception of patients, on the third day of 
January, in the year 1791, Bard was appointed one of 
the physicians ; twenty-three years after the utterance 
of his recommendatory address. In this capacity he 
continued to act, administering comfort to the pa- 
tients, and instruction to the pupils, until he saw it 
firmly established. 

The governors have not been unmindful of his servi- 
ces. They honoured him with a request that he should 
sit for a picture. Mr. Waldo, our fellow-citizen, who 
possesses genius* of a superior order in portrait painting, 
has executed it in such a manner as to erect a monu- 
ment of his own skill and fame, while he satisfied his 
employers. It is the most tasteful article that adorns 
the very valuable library of the hospital, and will 
stimulate every beholder, more particularly young gen- 
tlemen of elevated souls in the medical profession, to 
seek honours and distinctions by merit, and the favour 
that merit procures. 



20 

It must be evident to you, that Bard's return to 
New- York was a season when there was a call for 
hands to improve and decorate the social fabric. 
There was no public library in the city. He was not 
sparing of his exertions. For we next find him en- 
gaged with Robert R. Livingston, John Watts, Samuel 
Jones, and other enterprising gentlemen, in forming a 
society for the purchase of books. In the charter 
granted on the 9th day of November, 1772, by Gover- 
nor Try on, he is named as one of the petitioners and 
trustees. The fair beginning they made was retarded 
by the events of the revolutionary war. The functions 
of the company were interrupted by the tumult of the 
times. A principal part of the accumulated stock was 
plundered by the soldiers and adherents of the British 
army, and lost. A remnant, however, was saved by 
the care of the Reverend Benjamin Moore, one of the 
warm and steadfast friends of letters, and locked up in a 
chamber of St. Paul's Church. I well remember the 
pains Bard took, during the winter and spring of 1 784, 
to collect the scattered remnants of the property, and to 
recover the society from its torpor and dilapidation. 
He authorized me, young as I was, to solicit, in the 
newspapers, all persons possessing any of the books to 
return them ; and a considerable collection was made of 
the volumes at my lodgings. He became a trustee, 
and contributed, with John Cozine, Hugh Gaine, Na- 
thaniel Hazard, and other lovers of books and reading, 
to restore the society to activity and usefulness. It 
was soon placed on a respectable footing, and under 
the administration of their successors has grown to its 
present magnitude and importance. 

During 1770, the disease then called the sore throat 
distemper, was very fatal among young children in 
New-York. Dr. Bard, who had frequently met with 
it in his professional visits, published a dissertation upon 
it, under the title of an " Inquiry into the nature, cause, 
and cure of the Angina sufFocativa, or sore throat dis- 
temper, as it is commonly called by the inhabitants of 



21 

this city and colony." The disease he describes has 
puzzled the physicians who have read his publication. 
For Cullen, the acute nosologist, places it in the list of 
works on the Cynanche maligna ; while Albers, the 
successful competitor for the Buonapartean medal, 
quotes it as a treatise on Cynanche trachealis. The 
former classes it with writings on the malignant or 
ulcerous sore throat, while the latter ranks it with the 
publications on croup or tracheitis infantum. 

It is remarkable that Cullen should have mistaken 
the malady for Cynanche maligna, since the three dis- 
sections of children : who died of it, all proved the exist- 
ence of a tough lining of inspissated mucus or lymph, 
in the trachea. That great man was probably misled 
by the name of sore throat distemper, by the symptom 
of troublesome ulcers behind the ears, and by the opi- 
nion of the author that it was of an infectious nature. 

It is evident, that at the time the publication was 
made, the practical lines of distinction between the two 
diseases were not so well traced and distinctly marked 
as they are at present. He states, in express terms, 
that " it has gone too much under the appellation of 
" a sore throat ; and has by many been confounded with 
" diseases of that kind, &x. In truth, the throat, al- 
" though frequently affected, is not the seat of the dis- 
" ease, for many have died when that has been entirely 
" free from complaint, &c. In reality the windpipe and 
" lungs are the most affected in this disease, and it is the 
" disorder of these organs that gives origin to its charac- 
teristic symptoms, and constitutes its danger," &c. 
And yet he employs the cautious words, " one would 
imagine that bleeding and evacuations were not totally 
to be forbid," (p. 20.) Mentioning venesection, he 
says, " I dare hardly venture to prescribe it," (p. 21.) 
He uses the expression, " there is something very sin- 
gular in the tendency of the virus in this disease to 
attack the throat and trachea," &c. (p. 21.) After 
commending quicksilver " as the basis of the cure, 
especially in the beginning of the disease, it is by no 



means intended to condemn or omit the use of proper 
alexipharmics and antiseptics ; of which serpentaria 
and contrayerva are the most powerful, and have been 
used with the greatest success." He directs that u the 
patient should be kept in bed, and as the disease has a 
putrid tendency, the diaphoretics should be of the most 
alexipharmic and antiseptic kinds." He remarks, that 
" the bark is certainly a most powerful antiseptic, and 
when the symptoms of putrefaction, such as a moist 
clammy skin, highly putrid breath, and haemorrhages 
appear, must be attended with advantage. But early 
in the disease, when the skin continues dry, attended 
with a great difficulty of breathing, and the symptoms 
of inflammation rather than of putrefaction prevail, it 
should be omitted ; and here the removal of the dis- 
order should be attempted, chiefly by mercurials and 
mild sudorifics — and indeed the whole art in the cure 
of this disease depends upon properly timeing these re- 
medies, and insisting upon one or the other, as the 
symptoms of putrefaction do more or less prevail," 
(p. 27.) From this survey of the publication, it is evi- 
dent that croup is described, and a treatment corres- 
ponding to Cynache^ maligna is recommended. 

The tract, notwithstanding, has been much read, and 
often quoted. It has gained for its author a full pro- 
portion of reputation ; and will continue to be consulted 
by men of curious research in medicine. It has prompt- 
ed observation, and contributed toward a more ample 
and satisfactory knowledge of the subject. It gives 
me pleasure, before I pass to another article, to observe 
that the Seneka snake-root, or polygala, since recom- 
mended by Dr. Archer, is mentioned by Dr. Bard, 
though not with the intention of irritating the fauces, 
and thereby causing an ejection of the morbid secre- 
tion, but of promoting by its action, through the me- 
dium of the stomach, the attenuating effects of the 
calomel. 

The year 1 776 was a season of alarm and calamity. 
The misunderstandings between England and the colo- 



23 

nies had terminated in a war. This city was threatened, 
and finally captured by a powerful fleet and army. 
To avoid the impending danger, many of the inhabi- 
tants abandoned their homes, and fled to the surround- 
ing country. The anxious fugitives sought safety in 
any place where there was a prospect of finding it. 
On this occasion Dr. Bard retired to Shrewsbury, in 
the province of New- Jersey. And there he put in 
action his knowledge of chemistry, for the purpose of 
separating the muriate of soda from the brine of the ocean. 
Jt will be recollected that salt was then very scarce, 
and bore an extravagant price. The supplies were, in 
those days, wholly derived from foreign places. The 
enemy held the dominion of the seas. There was a 
deficiency for domestic consumption ; and, of course, a 
great lack for preserving meats and provisions for the 
army. At such a crisis, the preparation of sea-salt 
was not merely an enterprise promising profit to an 
individual or a partnership ; it was connected with the 
prosperity of the country, and with patriotic feelings. 
The shore of the region where he dwelt was washed 
by the waves of the Atlantic. It was, in many places, 
level, and easily parcelled into shallow pans favourable 
to evaporation. He believed he could extract this im- 
portant material from its natural menstruum, and turn 
it to profitable account.* 

* Well might he have thought so, for hereabout evaporation is often 
very rapid. Yet there is something in a maritime atmosphere, touching 
its impregnation at all times with a small quantity of sea salt, and on 
particular occasions with a large dose of that material, that eminently 
invites the consideration of the inhabitants and their physicians. I have 
often tested rain water, in and around New-York city, by the nitrate of 
silver, which never failed to produce a white precipitate, by the union of 
the metal, as I supposed, with the muriatic acid of the salt. 

Men live and vegetables grow in an air thus charged. It well deserves 
consideration how this ingredient affects health and life, and how they 
gradually become habituated to its action. 

On the 3d of September, 1821, the region from Norfolk to Portland 
was visited by a gale from the south-east. W T hatever may be the rea- 
son, the most violent winds come from that quarter, though they 
generally continue but for a few hours. This hurricane, which did not 
last more than the time between four and seven o'clock, p. m. was the 
most destructive that is remembered in these parts. It surpassed, in 



24 

It is always desirable to know how distinguished 
men conduct themselves in days of adversity. In 1 768, 

vehemence and continuance the heavy and levelling gust that occurred 
in the same region on the 19th of August, 1788. This blew down trees, 
prostrated corn, demolished barns and hovels, scattered stacks of grain, 
unroofed houses, overturned chimnies, levelled fences, and shook the 
fruit prematurely from the trees. The tide rose to an unusual height, 
vessels were cast ashore, driven from their anchors, and even stove and 
beaten to pieces at their moorings. Reports of the losses of property 
and of lives, both on the water and the land, filled the columns of the 
newspapers for several succeeding days. 

Amidst all these alarming and disastrous occurrences, the elevation of 
salt water into the air, in great quantity, was one of the most remark- 
able. I went in person to ascertain the facts. So strong was the blast, 
that the brine was lifted from the ocean, dispersed through the atmos- 
phere, and conveyed, with the rain that fell from the clouds, quite across 
the island, a distance of more than twenty miles. It appeared in the 
form of a saline incrustation on the glass of the windows the next 
morning, a subsequent shower having washed the principal part of it 
from the leaves of the trees. The cisterns and casks of rain water 
were found, by experiment with the nitrate of silver, to be charged with 
an unusually great proportion of muriatic acid. The people in some 
places observed that salt contained in the water that drained from the 
houses and trees, was sensible to the taste. Its operation was very in- 
jurious to the leaves. The orchards and forests observed from the 
south-east, or windward side, exhibited the russet appearance of having 
been killed by scorching or freezing. The spectacle was dreary, and 
yet the same trees viewed from the north-west, or leeward side, pre- 
sented the appearance of considerable verdure. Apple, pear, and cherry 
trees were the greatest sufferers. Hickory, wild cherry, locust, oak, 
and buttonwood, shared the calamity. Indeed, the trees and shrubs 
which seemed to have borne unhurt this saline rain, or this sprinkling 
and dashing of oceanic spray, were only two, the red cedar (juniperus 
virginiana) and the candleberry myrtle (myrica cerifera.) 

I mention those facts to show to our maritime inhabitants, and more 
especially to physicians and farmers, that the atmosphere which, in the 
vicinity of the sea, is always saline, is, on certain occasions, impreg- 
nated with a sufficient quantity of muriated soda to be exceedingly inju- 
rious to vegetable life. It was an universal, and, as I thought, a correct 
opinion, that the grass of the pastures and the blades of indian corn, 
partook largely in the damage. This was followed by a rise in the price 
of butter to twenty-eight and even thirty cents a pound. 

This furious gale began to windward. At Norfolk its vehemence was 
greatest between 10, a. m. and 1, p. m. and at New-York, between 4 and 
7, p. m. like the great hurricane which bore down from the south-east 
upon the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, in September, 
1804, and made vast havock; (see 8 Med. Rep. p. 354 — 365,) and unlike 
the great north-east storms of our country, which usually begin to 
leeward, (5 Med. Rep. p. 465—472.) 

The intelligence from New-Jersey, from Connecticut, Providence 
Plantations, and Massachusetts, is full of facts to show the transportation 
of the salt water many miles, some said thirty, or even more, from the 
shore to inland settlements. 



25 

about the time that he received the honorary ad eundem 
degree of M.D. from King's College, he had espoused 
Mary Bard, a beautiful and amiable lady, with whom 
he lived in happy conjugal union nearly fifty-three 
years, until almost the day of his own death. He felt 
it a duty to provide for his growing family. His pro- 
fessional business in the city was abandoned or ruined. 
There was no adequate resource in his place of refuge. 
In the exigency of his affairs he betook himself to the 
manufacture of salt : a business in which he flattered 
himself he could succeed. Success, however, was not 
the result. Unforeseen difficulties and impediments 
thwarted his schemes. He laboured until his funds 
and his patience were exhausted ; and then, like seve- 
ral other ingenious and unsuccessful men, relinquished 
the undertaking in despair. 

Calculating thereupon what was next to be done, he 
concluded it was expedient to return to the city. He 
accordingly came back ; and after various adventures 
and struggles, succeeded in securing an extensive and 
lucrative practice. To this he was chiefly devoted 
until the end of the war ; there being a suspension of 
the civil institutions which had afforded him so much 
employment and delight in peaceful days. His indus- 
try and good fortune were accompanied by economy 
and prudence. He had been careful to remit a hand- 
some amount of his earnings to London for safety. 
This was deposited, until an investiture could be made, 
in the hands of a banker believed to be solvent and 
honest. Yet the man became a bankrupt, and Bard 
sustained the heavy loss of several thousand pounds 
sterling. 

Still he found time to print a small tract. He had 
been assiduously engaged in obstetrical practice. He 
had made favourable mention of cold applications in 
menorrhagia and flooding. Rumours were circulated, 
on this occasion, to his prejudice, especially among the 
respectable dames and matrons. He thought it neces- 
sary to explain and enforce his opinion. Whereupon 

4 



26 

he caused an impression to be made, in 1 782, of a little 
essay on uterine hsemorrhagy, in which he informed 
them, among other matters, that ice had been intro- 
duced into the vagina with success. This was distri- 
buted among the women, to a considerable extent, for 
the purpose of quieting their fears, and relieving their 
apprehensions. But, as far as I can recollect, it was 
not offered for sale. His more mature reflections on the 
subject were afterwards published in another and im- 
proved form. See his Comp. of Midwifery, p. 156, 1 57. 

He continued in the city after the evacuation. Many 
of his old friends and employers had gone away with 
the forces and adherents of the enemy. The right own- 
ers, after a tedious and distressing absence, recovered 
the possession of their estates, and the rightful sove- 
reigns the dominion of the city and its dependencies. 
There was a general change of inhabitants. And 
Bard, who had been in the enemy's precincts, was 
obliged to encounter all the competition and prejudice 
of the whig-doctors, and of the patriots just returned 
from an exile of seven long years. This opposition, 
at length, he had address, ability, and good fortune to 
overcome, and he rapidly acquired the confidence of 
his fellow-citizens. 

With the re-establishment of social order, there was 
much to be done in addition to professional employment. 

During the occupancy by the enemy, nearly one 
third of the city had been destroyed by fire. Among 
the structures consumed by the devouring element, was 
the venerable pile which had been consecrated, by the 
Protestants of the Anglican Church, to the holy and 
undivided Trinity. Year after year its ruins had been 
a spectacle of melancholy grandeur ; worthy, had the 
era of devotional aspiration, or pictoral delineation ar- 
rived, of being perpetuated by the poet and the painter. 
The vestry had determined to rebuild it. Dr. Bard 
was, by religious profession, attached to this sect of 
Christians. He felt great concern for the style of ar- 
chitecture that should be adopted. He had a notion 



27 

that the gothic cathedrals afforded excellent models, 
impressive of the solemnity or awe befitting the house 
in which Almighty God received the worship of his 
sinful or penitent creatures. And the elliptical arches 
of the windows, with the small panes of glass, and the 
plain pyramid of the steeple rising from its tower, are 
said to have been adopted on his solicitation. 

For the same disastrous term King's College had 
been a military hospital. It is within my recollection 
that the chambers of that noble edifice, now devoted to 
literature, science, and the elegant arts, were wards 
occupied by the sick and wounded soldiers of the Bri- 
tish army. There I went to college, observing fevers 
and witnessing amputations, before I had been made to 
read the fables of iEsop, or the comedies of Terence. 
In the renewal of the institution, its title was changed 
to that of Columbia College ; and Bard was named in 
the statute a member of the new board of trustees ; 
a situation he held until he finally removed from 
the city. 

He was not a mere nominal person there. On the 
contrary, he took a very active part in the business. 
For example, a professor of chemistry was wanted for 
the medical department, in 1784. Bard was ap- 
pointed ; but he declined the acceptance. Soon after 
a professor of natural philosophy and astronomy was 
demanded immediately on its re-organization in 1785. 
Though he was aware of the difficulty of executing the 
duties, and of the deficiency of his own knowledge, he 
resolutely volunteered his own services to put the plan 
of education into operation, and to impart instruction 
to the students, ad interim. And he continued his 
labours until John Kemp, of Aberdeen, was appointed 
professor of that department. 

Bard's zeal for the promotion of literature and 
science was displayed on every becoming occasion. 
During 1785, when the famous blind philosopher, Dr. 
Henry Moyes, was in New- York, Dr. Bard was very 
assiduous to show the stranger pointed attention, and 



28 

to encourage, by example, the citizens to attend his 
scientific exhibitions ; exhibitions during which, in ad- 
dition to other varieties, a blind man discoursed with 
supreme intelligence on light and colours. 

The excitement produced, on this occasion, was 
very remarkable. For the inhabitants, to a considera- 
ble number, paid their guinea each to be enrolled 
members of u a society for the promotion of useful 
knowledge." The effort was laudable, but premature. 
Moyes went away. The people relapsed into their 
ordinary pursuits. And the good association was for- 
gotten, funds and all. It required a new and a different 
effort in 1815, after a lapse of nearly thirty years, to 
establish a Literary and Philosophical Society in New- 
York. 

But other undertakings were attended by more fa- 
vourable results. A new medical society was formed, 
of which John Charlton was President, and James 
Tillary Secretary. The school of medicine in Colum- 
bia College, (late King's,) was revived ; and with the 
new faculty, Samuel Bard, in 1784, was, as already 
mentioned, appointed professor of chemistry, though he 
declined the acceptance. And the hospital, as was be- 
fore noticed, was resuscitated. 

The Legislature of the state, on the 12th of April, 
1792, made an appropriation of $ 1,875 per annum, for 
five successive years, for the support of additional profes- 
sorships in Columbia College. In procuring this grant, 
Melancthon Smith, Esq. then an Assemblyman from 
the city, was particularly instrumental. About the 
same time the Medical Society solicited the trustees 
to re-organize the board of professors, the faculty ap- 
pointed immediately after the peace having been little 
more than nominal. As a part of this system, Dr. 
Bard nominated the person who now addresses you, as 
the professor of chemistry, natural history, and agri- 
culture. I resided then at Plandome, in Queen's 
County, and was full of other occupation. Dr. Bard's 
letter came there, informed me of my election, and 



29 

urged the propriety of accepting it. The inconve- 
nience of relinquishing my situation and prospects 
there was finally surmounted. I came to the city, 
held a conference with my influential friend, and en- 
tered upon my professional functions at short notice. 
As early as July I taught the reformed chemistry of 
the French, and unfurled the standard of Lavoisier 
sooner, I believe, than any other professor in the Unit- 
ed States. 

* On this arrangement Bard was not made a professor, 
for he did not desire it. But in organizing the board, 
it was so managed that there should be a chairman, 
who was called the Dean ; and who sat, debated, and 
voted with the professors. Dr. Bard was called to 
this place, and held it for several years, aiding, by his 
presence and counsel, their deliberations ; and forming 
a link between the board of professors and the board 
of trustees. 

Soon after these events, a new scene was unfolded 
to the admiring world. Philadelphia had been visited 
by a desolating sickness in 1793, which was called 
yellow fever. The dominant opinion was, that it was 
of a contagious nature, and imported from some fo- 
reign place. 

The next year, (1794,) New- York was smitten by 
a similar calamity. The prevailing sentiment here, 
also, was, that so malign a distemper, though it had 
destroyed many lives in 1791, could not have been en- 
gendered in a climate so mild, and among a people so 
temperate as ours ; but that it must have been intro- 
duced from some tropical region labouring under the 
curse of distemperature and insalubrity. 

During the pressure of such a morbid weight, a 
board of health was formed, under the presidency of 
the virtuous and venerable John Broome. Of this 
board Dr. Bard was a member, and he seems to have 
been convinced that the popular notions were correct. 

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia pub- 
lished, in 1798, a pamphlet, entitled " facts and obser- 



30 

vations relative to the nature and origin of the pestilen- 
tial fever which prevailed in that city during 1793, 
1797, and 1798. And, in 1806, the same learned 
body published " additional facts and observations rela- 
tive to the nature and origin of the pestilential fever." 
In this latter work, (p. 15—19.) there is a letter or Dr. 
Bard, in which he "considers the fever as a distinct 
idiopathic disease, and not a variety or grade of any 
other ; that it is a stranger, and not a native of our 
country ; and, from the best information he was able 
to obtain, in every instance imported from abroad." 

I touch, with reluctance, a subject which has divided 
the citizens, physicians, and all, into two great parties ; 
and in the discussion of which, there has, from some 
strange cause, been a display of heat and acrimony 
rarely seen, except in religious and political contro- 
versies. 

Self love and domestic attachment incline men, in 
most situations, to think favourably of the place in 
which they were born. The sentiment is natural ; 
because frequently their property, their business, and 
the prosperity of themselves, their families, and de- 
scendants are involved in it. In a particular manner 
they are prone to believe this of the spot of their actual 
occupancy ; or, at least, that such spot is exempt from 
ugly, malignant, and frightful diseases. Under the in- 
fluence of this consoling prejudice, they feel thankful 
that a merciful God has withheld from them such awful 
tokens of his wrath ; — that pestilential distempers are 
brought from the blasted regions of Africa and the 
Indies ; and that, by a true course of vigilance, they 
may be excluded as easily as prohibited merchandise. 
As Dr. Bard was a believer in the contagiousness and 
importation of yellow fever, he was, of course, friendly 
to quarantines and lazarettoes, which are the fortifica- 
tions erected against a foreign and ferocious foe, who 
violates all faith, and is utterly regardless of pacts and 
treaties. 

Yet by far the greater number of our physicians de- 



31 

clare themselves unbelievers in this doctrine; saying 
that yellow fever may and does arise on ship-board, 
without any seed, or spark, or leaven of foreign deriva- 
tion ; that the like happens in our country occasionally 
from local causes ; that it may arise from a morbid dis- 
position of the elements, within the human body itself; 
and that it is not communicable from person to person, 
by a specific poison or virus, any more than common 
catarrhs, intermittent fevers, yawning, ophthalmia, or 
epilepsy. They say further, that the restraints imposed 
upon navigation and travelling are harsh, expensive, 
and, to a considerable degree, unnecessary ; and that 
quarantining ought to be changed to ship -cleanings, 
and lazarettoes to purifying infirmaries. 

For my own part, I was educated a contagionist. I 
had imbibed the speculative notions of my teachers, that 
those destructive and unsightly fevers were outlandish 
and imported. Upon a practical survey of the subject, 
I found there was much to unlearn. I could not dis- 
cover that the yellow fever, the scourge and terror of 
our maritime cities, was contagious, or taken by the 
patient from one sick individual, and communicated to 
another well one. I bore loud and steady testimony 
against the mistake or delusion for twenty years and 
more. The converts among the people, however, are 
few and rare. The great mass of the citizens dread 
the disease now more than formerly. A single case 
is thought capable of tainting a house with its specific 
venom ; and even of endangering a neighbourhood, 
village, or city. The sick have often been abandoned 
by their families and attendants. Every occurrence is 
made the subject of anxious inquiry and instant pub- 
licity. And society is distressfully agitated from the 
ocean to the Lakes. In this feverish state of the public 
mind, the prospect of a change, in the great inter- 
national system of commercial intercourse, is indefi- 
nitely remote. Longer time, and further observation, 
will be required to allay the ruling panic. General 
conviction can only be wrought, if produced at all, by 



32 

slow degrees. In the mean while, public apprehension 
will induce the majority to pursue such measures of 
precaution as, in their opinion, will have the strongest 
tendency to keep the invader away. 

If there was a board of health, directing a daily re- 
port to be made of every case of phthisis and syphylis, 
the impression upon the public mind would be terrific. 
Many parts of the country endure, by fevers of various 
forms, and some of them accompanied by yellow skins, 
bloody issues and black vomitings, a mortality equal to 
the worst sufferings of the sea-ports. But as there are 
no boards of health, nor bulletins in the journals, to 
give them utterance and importance, no distant alarm 
is excited. 

The refusal of the administration in Great Britain, 
to appoint commissioners for a new inquiry into the 
maladies prevalent at Gibraltar and Malta, on the soli- 
citation of Charles Maclean, M.D., shows that there 
is no disposition to change the system of regulations 
against the plague. And the decision of the board, 
which lately sat in France, on the memorial of John 
Deveze, D.M., relative to the yellow fever, that the dis- 
ease is contagious, proves that the law of quarantines and 
lazarettoes will be enforced against all vessels and per- 
sons arriving from places where that distemper prevails. 

I consider this state of the popular mind as a very 
serious misfortune. For if the disease can be imported, 
it can be exported. And thus, in addition to number- 
less other inconveniences, the States of North America, 
with their yellow fever, are regarded by Europeans as 
much the objects of suspicion and alarm, as the States 
of Barbary are with their plague. 

The profits of his practice were so considerable, that, 
in 1 796, he found himself able to execute a design he 
had, for a considerable time, meditated, of quitting the 
labour of the profession, of improving his farm at Hyde- 
Park, and of devoting himself to agriculture and rural 
life. He had moved verv much in the circles of wealth 
and fashion. When President Washington, in 1790, 



33 

laboured under a disease that was deemed dangerous. 
Bard was his physician. And I mention, with an 
agreeable recollection, that he was the person who in- 
troduced me first to Washington, at one of the draw- 
ing-rooms held in the house he then occupied in Cherry- 
street. At the period of his retirement he must have 
been in the 55th year of his life. 

His residence was in the opulent and productive 
county of Duchess. He was too important a man to 
be overlooked ; and he understood the value of time 
too well to sit down in inactivity. When the physi- 
cians associated under the statute providing medical 
societies, they elected him President of the Society for 
the county in which he dwelt. And this honour was 
soon followed by his elevation, in 1806 — 7, to the pre- 
sidency of the County Agricultural Society. To both 
he delivered several discourses, which were printed, or 
noticed with approbation, in the journals of the day. 

It was during 1 807 that he published a work which 
he had prepared with extraordinary care. I mean his 
Compendium of the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, 
It contains instructions for the management of women 
during pregnancy, in labour, and in childbed. The 
author endeavoured to correct the errors, and improve 
the knowledge of midwives ; and to put into the hands 
of students and young practisers, an introduction to the 
obstetric art. He had frequently, after he entered into 
business, and more particularly during his residence in 
the country, observed how much the midwives stood in 
need of instruction, and how incapable most of them 
are, from pecuniary want, as well as from deficient 
education, to derive it from systematic sources and sci- 
entific books. He therefore concluded that a brief 
treatise, at a low price, containing plain but correct 
directions for natural labours, and for the relief of such 
symptoms and sufferings as often attend pregnancy and 
parturition, would, in the actual state of society, prove 
an useful performance. This is his object ; in the effort 
to accomplish which, he has rather aimed at usefulness 

5 



34 

than erudition ; to offer no more than is absolutely ne- 
cessary, and easy to be understood ; and to detail such 
facts and observations as have been long known, and 
have received the sanction of time and experience, 
rather than to offer new opinions. He, therefore, re- 
linquishes all claim to originality ; and, indeed, so fai- 
ls he from aiming at it, that he occasionally uses the 
language of others, for he has found it sufficiently clear 
and familiar for his purpose. The matter of the w r ork 
is arranged under five chapters ; the first of which 
treats of the female pelvis and its contents ; the second, 
of pregnancy, its symptoms, and diseases ; the third, 
of natural labour ; the fourth, of the causes and reme- 
dies of tedious and preternatural labours ; and the last 
on the diseases of women in childbed, and of infants 
during the month. To these is subjoined an appendix, 
containing receipts for all the remedies mentioned in 
the book ; their proper doses ; and directions for their 
general use. A few are added for the purpose of ren- 
dering it more complete as a domestic pharmacopoeia 
for the use of families at a distance from medical ad- 
vice ; or, on slight occasions, where it may not be ne- 
cessary to call a physician. 

Dr. Bard valued himself on his skill and success in 
this branch of practice. He enjoyed the satisfaction of 
seeing his publication pass through several editions. 
He exerted himself incessantly to render it more in- 
structive and useful. A copy is said to have been left 
by him, revised and enlarged for a new edition, which 
it|Was his intention to have published during the last 
summer. It gratifies me highly to mention this little 
book as an excellent manual of instruction, and which 
may be read with advantage by every medical student. 

On the 1st of April, 1811, while in the 69th year of 
his age, and the 15th after he had left the city, he was 
appointed, by the Regents of the University, President 
of this College on the removal of Nicholas Romayne. 
Of Nicholas Romayne, M.D. thus brought to my re- 
collection, let me be indulged in a tribute of regard. 



35 

He was one of our best educate4 and most active phy- 
sicians. He taught, in the capacities of public and pri- 
vate instructer, almost all the branches of the profes- 
sion, and rallied round himself a considerable number 
of students, prior to 1792. He was successively the 
President of the County Medical Society, of the State 
Medical Society, and of this College. He solicited its 
charter, during the administration of Morgan Lewis, 
then governor of the commonwealth and chancellor of 
the university. And such were the difficulties to be 
overcome, that I have always thought there was no 
other man that possessed ability and perseverance 
enough to surmount them. Though worthy of a bio- 
grapher, Romayne, like many other meritorious men, 
has not been fortunate enough to obtain one. 

And of Morgan Lewis, thus incidentally mentioned, 
I hope I may be permitted to utter a few sentences. 
He is entitled to the respect of the w T hole profession, 
and of every physician among us. For it was he that 
officially subscribed our deed of incorporation ; it was 
he who elicited from the late Professor Edward Miller, 
then resident physician, his invaluable report on yellow 
fever ; and it was he who signed the statute appro- 
priating a bounty, for forty years, to the New- York 
Hospital, enabling it to be enlarged in various ways, 
but more especially as a grand asylum for lunatics. It 
was during his time, also, that the great and important 
statutes were enacted for regulating the practice of 
physic and surgery, in 1806 and 7. 

The college has been kind to Dr. Bard. The por- 
trait, voted by the trustees, is now before us. It repre- 
sents him in the ripeness of manhood. It is a copy 
made by Mr. M'Clelland, a meritorious young artist, 
whom he had patronized, from an original in the pos- 
session of Dr. Hosack, executed by our distinguished 
fellow-citizen, Vanderlyn. There are, however, mate- 
rial additions to the drapery and back ground. 

Dr. Bard became an enthusiast in favour of the me- 
rino breed of sheep ; and during the same year (1811) 



36 

published a tract, entitled " a guide for young shep- 
herds." In this are contained facts and observations 
on the character and value of these animals, with rules 
and precepts for their management, and the treatment of 
their diseases, as well as of sheep in general. It pur- 
ports to be a collection from the latest and best writers 
on these subjects, and their confirmation by the author 
and his friends. The reviewers, in the Medical Re- 
pository (vol. 15. p. 176.) notice it in these words: 
" In the midst of all this successful enterprise, comes 
"forth the experienced author of the present treatise, as 
" a guide to the shepherds. We hail him with the pipe 
" of Pan, and the welcome of Silvanus. We greet him 
"in pastoral strains, as worthy of being sung by a 
" Mantuan or Syracusan muse. And should any of 
" our countrymen feel poetic inspiration enough, like 
" Dyer, to write in praise of the fleece, we recommend 
" to his special celebration the services rendered to it 
" by Bard." The materials are comprehended chiefly 
in four chapters. In the first, the character and quali- 
ties of the merino race are considered. Their superior 
excellence and profit are attempted to be proved by 
cogent arguments. The second treats of the main- 
tenance and support of sheep. Herein are remarks on 
high and low feeding, and on summer and winter ma- 
nagement. He recommends plentiful food ; and shows, 
by an engraving, how barns for provender, hovels for 
shelter, and troughs for feeding, ought to be constructed. 
He gives ample directions about breeding, in the third 
chapter ; the age and fitness of rams, the number and 
size of ewes, and management and rearing of lambs 
are discussed ; to which are added practical direc- 
tions on docking, washing, shearing, and marking, with 
figures of an easy and certain way of marking or num- 
bering sheep, by cutting nicks and notches in their ears. 
The diseases of sheep are the subject of the fourth 
chapter. Therein are contained practical instructions 
about wounds, abscesses, ulcers, and fractures, and con- 
cerning looseness, bloody-lax, foot-rot, staggers, scab, 



31 

and several other distempers. And he concludes his 
instructive and excellent performance with the history 
of the sheep-pox, or variolee ovinae ; called also the 
claveau. The work exhibits the author to advantage, 
in the two-fold capacity of farmer and physician. 

The last of his printed works that I remember to 
have seen, is the discourse on medical education, which 
he delivered to the class who commenced doctors on 
the 6th day of April, 1819, in this college. It is a 
sensible and judicious tract, extolling, in the highest 
terms, " persevering industry, and well directed labour;" 
recommending, in warm strains, the study of classical 
literature ; exhibiting, in a conclusive manner, the be- 
nefit of a preceptoral, public, and enlarged education ; 
and demonstrating the importance of a pure morality. 
Towards the close he has these remarks, (p. 27,) which 
I quote for their justness and value. Speaking of the 
profession, he observes, " Extensive beyond the limits 
" of any other science, in the variety of its objects, the 
" continually changing nature of its subjects, and the 
" endless progressive march of its improvements, it is 
61 impossible to acquire what is now known, or to keep 
" pace with its daily accessions of knowledge, but by a 
" zeal and industry as steady and persevering as time 
" itself. Reaching over the face of the whole earth, 
" and at the same time penetrating into the recesses of 
" every private family, unless our knowledge be ac- 
" companied by prudence, virtue, and religion, w r e may 
" do more harm by our example than we can do good 
" by our skill." 

But it is time I should release you from your long and 
respectful attention. Although the remaining part of 
my theme is very copious, I shall abridge it to a few 
paragraphs. Dr. Bard had experienced, in the latter 
part of his life, the gradual decay of nature, which ren- 
dered him feeble and infirm. He had even observed to 
me, he had become a weak and crazy vessel, and could 
not hold together much longer. Such notices of ap- 
proaching dissolution had been communicated to me in 



38 

writing, with firm hands and clear heads, by Joseph 
Priestly, LL.D. and General Horatio Gates. Like 
them, our president retained, to the last, the exercise of 
his reason.' Conscious of his approaching end, he pre- 
pared for it without anxiety or alarm, and enjoyed such 
self-possession, that immediately before his death he 
gave many minute directions to his son, as to what he 
wished to be done afterwards. Without enduring any 
considerable pain, he passed from this into a better 
world, looking forward, with the hope of a Christian, 
to the rewards of a well-spent life, on the 27th of 
May, 1821. 

Of his general character, of his candour, of the 
purity of his intentions, of the tenderness of his feel- 
ings, of his polite and genteel manners, of his ardour in 
the pursuits he deemed honourable and useful, of his 
calm but practical and sincere religious feelings, of his 
domestic, conjugal, and paternal virtues, of his cheerful 
temper and his love to mankind, much might be said. 
The recollection is deeply imprinted on the hearts of 
his friends, and will be long remembered. In all these 
respects he was a model worthy of your imitation ; 
insomuch that to him may be applied the verses written 
by Tickell on the death of Addison : 

He taught us how to live : and oh, too high 
The price of knowledge ! taught us how to die. 



THE END. 



sffi^®t<§^m B<B<w&»8V<i>uni 



<* 



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Abernethy's Surgical Works, 4 vols, bound in two. 

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Armstrong on Puerperal Fevers. 

Bell's (Charles) Operative Surgery, founded on the basis of Anatomy, 
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Bell's (Charles) Engravings of the Arteries. Coloured plates. 

Bell's (Charles) Engravings of the Nerves. 

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Bell on Gonorhaea Virulenta and Lues Venerea. 

Boyer's Lectures on the Diseases of the Bones, arranged by Richerand. 

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Remarks on Medical Jurisprudence, as connected with Diseased In- 
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Currie's Medical Reports, on the effects of Water, cold and warm, as a 
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Denman's Introduction to the Practice of Midwifery, with Notes by 
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Fyfe's Compendium of Anatomy, 4 vols. 8vo. 

Gallup's Sketches of Epidemic Diseases in the State of Vermont. 

Haller's Anatomical Plates of the Arteries of the Human Body. 



40 

Hamilton's (James) Observations on the Utility and Administration of 
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Hamilton (James) on the use and abuse of Mercurial Medicines. 

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London Dissector, or System of Dissection. 

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Merriman's Synopsis of the various kinds of Difficult Parturition, with 
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